Arch is aimed at people who know their shit so they can build their own distro based on how they imagine their distro to be. It is not a good distro for beginners and non power users, no matter how often you try to make your own repository, and how many GUI installers you make for it. There’s a good reason why there is no GUI installer in arch (aside from being able to load it into ram). That being that to use Arch, you need to have a basic understanding of the terminal. It is in no way hard to boot arch and type in archinstall. However, if you don’t even know how to do that, your experience in whatever distro, no matter how arch based it is or not, will only last until you have a dependency error or some utter and total Arch bullshit® happens on your system and you have to run to the forums because you don’t understand how a wiki works.

You want a bleeding edge distro? Use goddamn Opensuse Tumbleweed for all I care, it is on par with arch, and it has none of the arch stuff.

You have this one package that is only available on arch repos? Use goddamn flatpak and stop crying about flatpak being bloated, you probably don’t even know what bloat means if you can’t set up arch. And no, it dosent run worse. Those 0,0001 seconds don’t matter.

You really want arch so you can be cool? Read the goddamn 50 page install guide and set it up, then we’ll talk about those arch forks.

(Also, most arch forks that don’t use arch repos break the aur, so you don’t even have the one thing you want from arch)

    • Pika@sh.itjust.works
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      yea, but I feel like it’s worth saying that steamdeck (where most of the steamos instances are) runs primarily in steam mode, and runs immutable OS by default so it’s pretty hard to actually mess that up. Plus steam manages most updates for you instead of you managing the updating yourself, which also helps remove the skill factor.

    • Luffy@lemmy.mlOP
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      SteamOS falls into the category of about 2 arch forks that have a reason to exist.

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        Don’t know about Cachy but Endeavour is not even a fork. It’s just Arch with a fancy installer.

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          Didn’t both distros have Btrfs auto snapshots. Same as Garuda. Anything broken? Just a reboot, arrow keys, and rollback.

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    This post is a little cringe. Endeavor OS is a great Arch Experience for those who want a little preconfiguration and a GUI install. I’ve since moved onto doing it the arch way, but EOS was a great foot in the door and I know for a fact I’m not alone. Ive learned more about Linux in 2 years going from EOS to Arch (and running a proxmox server) than I would have running some “beginner friendly” distro. Really wish folks would stop gatekeeping.

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    Any windows power user or dev on a mac can follow a wiki, read a bit and learn.

    Good for beginners? I didn’t describe a beginner right here. Anybody with experience in computing will find arch straightforward and satisfying. Heck, a CS student would probably go through a first install process faster than I do after 5 years.

    What are the concept involved? Partitioning, networking, booting… These are all familiar fields to tons of very normal computer users.

    Arch can be a good first distro to anyone who knows what a computer is doing (or is willing to learn)

    • Programmer Belch@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      Arch was my first distro after going back to Linux. I really liked learning the inner workings of a computer and an OS.

      I know plenty of people who just want a plug&play experience with the only input for the install being name, password and date. For them, I would never recommend Arch, simply mint or pop_os would do just fine as the only thing the computer has to do is open up the browser.

      I just want more Linux users, not specific distros. In the end if you know your way around Linux, the distro choice doesn’t matter, you just choose a package repo

        • schizo@forum.uncomfortable.business
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          Even following ‘beginner’ tutorials is hit or miss

          It’s gotten worse than it even used to be, because more than half the “tutorials” I’ve run across are clearly AI written and basically flat out wrong.

          Of course, they’re ALSO the “answers” that get pushed by Bing/Google so even if you run into someone who is willing to follow documentation, they’re going to get served worthless slop.

          One thing I will give arch is that if there’s a wiki entry for something, it’s at least written by a human and is actually accurate which is more than I’ve found ANYWHERE else.

    • ☂️-@lemmy.ml
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      just because a given person could make it work, doesnt mean they want to. i can personally fix a lot of these issues, but i dont wanna have to bother. i just want to accomplish the inane bullshit i turned my computer on for.

      i just think an arch recommendation should always come with that disclaimer. newbies have to know what to expect else they will associate that experience with linux in general.

  • Fushuan [he/him]@lemm.ee
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    “I didnt read the changelogs”

    I have never read the changelogs and I have never broken my EOS install ever.

    Weak bait.

    • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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      • Arch users everywhere: You MUST read the Arch news files before updating.
      • Also Arch users when updating: Oops, I forgot to read the news file.
      • pacman when updating: I have pre install hooks but I don’t print the news files updates by default because that’s probably bloat or something.

      Make it make sense

      • qpsLCV5@lemmy.ml
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        while you do have a point, i’m still having issues with taskwarrior printing it’s update notifications, even after opening an issue and the maintainers patching it.

        The thing is, i use arch on 3 different devices, and i don’t need to see every news entry 3 times, so yes in my case having it as default in pacman would indeed be bloat.

        That said, there is PLENTY of places where I think arch could have saner defaults. but the beauty of arch is that it is made to be configured exactly the way you like it, so you really can’t fault arch as much in this case, compared to other distros that try to take all decisionmaking away from the user.

        • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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          You can never be 100% certain the news file didn’t update between the three invocations. If you aren’t refreshing that page between invocations then you aren’t actually using Arch the way it was designed.

          • qpsLCV5@lemmy.ml
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            well you can never be 100% certain your laptop won’t spontaneously die either.

            for any new arch user, i do recommend keeping an archiso live USB around in case something really does happen - since every arch user should know the basics of how it works, it should be easy enough to recover as well.

            knowing that, i really only check the news out of curiosity, since i’m not a grub user i haven’t had arch be unbootable since i started using it years ago. even if it did i’m confident enough it’d be a quick fix.

  • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
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    I would, however, recommend Arch if you’re a Linux novice looking to learn about Linux in a more accelerated pace.

  • ad_on_is@lemm.ee
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    On the contrary, I’d still argue it’s a good distro for beginners, but not for newbies. people who are tech-sawy and not hesitant to learn new things.

    I jumped straight into EndeavorOS when I switched to Linux, since arch was praised as the distro for developers, for reasons.

    Sure, I had some issues to fight with, but it taught me about all the components (and their alternatives) that are involved in a distro.

    So, once you have a problem and ask for help, the first questions are sorts of “what DE/WM do you use?.. is it X11 or wayland? are you using alsa or pipewire?”.

    Windows refugees (like me) take so many things for granted, that I think this kind of approach really helps in understanding how things work under the hood. And the Arch-wiki is just a godsend for thst matter. And let’s be real, you rarely look into Arch-wiki for distros other than Arch itself, since they mostly work OOTB.

    • Scrath@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      The Arch-wiki was my main reason for switching to arch. When I used an ubuntu based distro I felt like I had to rely on forum posts to figure out anything whereas with arch everything is documented incredibly well

      • iriyan@lemmy.ml
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        True, between arch and gentoo wiki you can hardly find any other information that is worth your while.

  • Aatube@kbin.melroy.org
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    Arch is aimed at people who know their shit so they can build their own distro based on how they imagine their distro to be.

    Is Arch only for people who know how to seek help? Maybe. But it absolutely is not a distro template. It’s a distro.

    • dx1@lemmy.ml
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      A package manager + some packages in the base system maybe, is basically a distro template. And maybe some kernel tweaks, or a built-in DE/WM. Or opinionated init system maybe.

      • Aatube@kbin.melroy.org
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        There are so many more aspects of Arch that you conveniently ignored. The filesystem hierarchy, the special compilation arguments options tweaks and configuration for e.g. dynamic linking, and how Arch has way more packages than just “some packages in the base system”. And no, I don’t mean the AUR. Arch is no less of a distro than any other distro. What is a distro if not a large swathe of packages meticulously tweaked to interop gloriously?

        • dx1@lemmy.ml
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          “Conveniently?” I’m not making a case against Arch. I’m literally using an Arch derivative. Just not trying to sit here listing every single customization they ever made. Chill the fuck out.

            • dx1@lemmy.ml
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              Cause there’s like six other distros based on it. The point is that a package manager especially is a huge part of what differentiates the general experience of using a distro, and how a derivative distro works. And sure, lots of other details. Something like Manjaro, Artix etc. is basically cut from Arch as a template, often incorporating upstream changes or packages, with downstream changes based on differences of opinion.

              • Aatube@kbin.melroy.org
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                Ubuntu has over 100 forks. Is Ubuntu a distro template? Something being forkable merely means that it is libre software.

                • dx1@lemmy.ml
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                  1 month ago

                  I don’t think this is a well-defined term, so not much point in arguing about its definition.

  • Barbossa@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    I started with mint more than 10 years ago because a friend of mine told me it was one, if not the best, distro for newbies (that was a fucking lie). Idk how mint is doing today but back then was kind of a mess and dealing with it wasnt easy, so i dont really know how or why i switched to debian for a while. With debian i had a lot of problems with some software, mostly proprietary drivers for esotic hardware i was running back then due to me buying the cheapest laptops available, so i started distro hopping for a while. Every distro but fedora was debian based so it felt a lot like a more of the same experience and I felt stuck in a loop where i was eventually gonna reinstall my whole system after breaking something i didnt even know existed.

    Then one day i found arch. Installing it wasnt as easy as clicking install on the live system’s guy, but just by following the wiki general instructions i didnt have any issues the first time. It felt good. Building the system block by block helped me understand how things work, the package manager was the best i had seen and the newbie corner basically had the solutions for all my screw-ups, even more than ask-ubuntu did. Everybody in the community was super helpful (even some of the devs). Then there was the AUR, with almost every piece of esotic or proprietary software i needed, much easier than adding some random guy’s repositories to apt or enabling backports on debian. Also i found out that i prefer having a rolling release. With arch i learned how to use and maintain my system, and i just stuck with it.

    That said, just how some use linux just to brag about it with their normie friends, many many people use arch to brag about it with other linux users (like my friend did), mostly beacause arch has the infamous reputation that it is hard to install, hard to maintain, easy to break. Which is actually not that bad considering that all these people are gonna end up posting in the newbie corner lol.

    Truth is that arch is not harder than any other distro. It only comes down to your will to learn and RTFM What i think worked for me was the transparency. Nobody said it was as easy to use as windows, but nobody in the wiki said “dont do this unless you are an experienced user”. Arch is not another fork of ubuntu pretending to be “even more user friendly”, it’s just arch.

    I think the problem is about distros like antergos (rip), manjaro, garuda, endevour trying to oversimplify something that only needs you to RTFM only ending up breaking something they tried to automate and hide behind a curtain that wasnt meant to be automated and was meant to be learned to manage, by hand

    EDIT: spelling. I’m a non-english speaker, if you find any more errors just tell me and i will correct them (or clarify something better)

    • jcg@halubilo.social
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      I think mint is crazy better these days compared to 10 years ago, and it probably just came down to “we want to be user friendly to those who need their hands held” crashing into “actual users who need their hand held are trying it out.” 10 years ago, I think there simply wasn’t enough interested in Linux outside of Linux circles to properly test and figure things out, not to mention the strides the software itself has made in supporting more hardware more seamlessly.

      The thing about RTFM is that users don’t, and the users that stuff like Mint is geared towards is those who when asked to read a wiki page, will simply give up. Windows has a cottage industry of people who do various things to make it easier for that kind of user. For example, just installing Windows on a device for you (albeit with bloatware usually) complete with all the drivers for your hardware. For most of the hardware on a laptop (audio, internet, HIDs, USB), that’ll have you set for life without having to touch anything and for the graphics that’ll at least have you set for several years without having to touch anything. And it’s not like Linux doesn’t have this level of support, it’s just that Windows has this level of support for consumers and Linux typically has it relegated to the enterprise sphere.

      That being said, it’s insane how easy it is now to just install Mint, or PopOS, or even Ubuntu and have a working system. But most users don’t even install their Windows, much less a completely foreign OS.

    • Zink@programming.dev
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      For what it’s worth, I have switched three machines of mine from Win10 to Mint in the last year, and in each case it was much easier and faster to install than Windows. And of course, daily use is much faster and smoother than Windows, but that is true of all distros. It’s just worth mentioning because mint is made to be the full featured user friendly experience (some might even call it bloated) out of the box, yet it’s still a rocket in comparison.

      One was a typical work-issued Dell laptop w/ port replicator + M365, one was an old PC at home I built several years ago, and the last was an even older PC I built like 14 years ago.

      Just yesterday at work I installed Win10 in VirtualBox so I could test a Windows app that gets built alongside our main embedded Linux software (used the VM since a certain popup window secondary to the main app wasn’t immediately working in Wine). Holy crap was it painful after being used to the Mint installer.

      Then when I got home I decided to turn on that 14 year old system that’s been off for a month (when I installed the latest point release 22.1) to let it update. Even using the GUI updater, and even though it had to update the updater itself before updating however many dozen packages AND the kernel, I timed the entire process at five minutes flat. On the computer from 2011, with a pretty old & small SATA SSD system drive. And you can use the PC like normal until it’s done, when it shows a banner suggesting you reboot when you can because of the kernel update.

      Again, nothing special in the Linux world where software is actually created with users put first. But still noteworthy for being the “easy” distro that looks a lot like Windows when you first boot it up.

      I’m not posting this to say anything negative about Arch, either. That kind of distro is very important to begin with, and Arch in particular seems it’s good enough that it might be the new Debian. Especially with SteamOS switching to it.

      • unique_hemp@discuss.tchncs.de
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        AFAIK no systemd -> no flatpak -> don’t recommend to newbs. Say what you will about flatpak, but it is the official distribution method for some popular pieces of software and large GUI software generally works better through it (in my experience) - think Blender, GIMP etc.

        • nullpotential@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          No software worth its salt offers only flatpak installation. I don’t use flatpak at all and Blender works flawlessly. I’m not sure what a flatpak version could possibly do any better than the version I use.

          • unique_hemp@discuss.tchncs.de
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            I’m not sure what a flatpak version could possibly do any better than the version I use.

            The official OBS flatpak supports more codecs and integrations than some distro packages.

            Stability is also a factor, especially on rolling or cutting edge distros. Fedora RPM release of Blender did not work for me at all with an nvidia GPU, for example.

              • qpsLCV5@lemmy.ml
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                funnily enough, i see it as one of the advantages of arch, and a reason i’ll keep putting up with the constant updating for the forseeable future - nvidia support has gotten way better recently, and since arch has very recent packages i haven’t had nvidia issues in quite a while now.

                Once it all lands in debian i’ll consider giving debian another shot on desktop… but that’ll take a while.

            • nullpotential@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              But we’re not talking about rolling or cutting edge distros. MX is based on Debian Stable. Also last time I checked (about a month ago) MX Linux does support Flatpak. Also also, you can enable systemd if you want, but seeing as we’re talking about a distro for complete beginners, I don’t think they’re going to notice, know, or care. Also also also, I really don’t care enough about this to drag it out into some protracted argument.

              Download ventoy, slap a few distros on a usb stick, try them, use what you like.

    • Petter1@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      And then wonder why everybody having a good time with their nvidia on smooth wayland vs you on your ancient, ok now only old Kernel since the last ubuntu upgrade, and outdated nvidia drivers.

      Oh wait, with mint, you are forced to use clunky Xorg aren’t you

      I am sure that gives any noob the vibes of using a modern OS like windows/macOS /s

      • Bogasse@lemmy.ml
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        I’m not sure a newcomer will notice the difference between xorg and wayland?

        • Petter1@lemm.ee
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          I did, before I knew what wayland is, I did some distrohopping (see path below), and recognised that sometimes it feels more nice than other times. First I thought it was just GPU driver stuff, but later learned that it was something called wayland that does something underneath your desktop management (didn’t know that there is another layer below at that time)

          (mint->manjaro->manjaro(after it died once)->Opensuse TW(after manjaro died again)->Arch(because I liked installing from AUR more than from suse community hub)->EndeavourOS(because I don’t have time to do Arch manually and archinstall was to difficult/time consuming with dualbooting macOS)

      • lime!@feddit.nu
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        2 months ago

        wayland is still too unstable for me to recommend. what is clunky about xorg?

        • Petter1@lemm.ee
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          Do you use a modern kernel? And, do you use a multi touch trackpad? That only works on wayland well.

          I personally see the difference in for example window movement Xorg VS wayland. And I have more artefacts from window manager if use Xorg BS when O use wayland.

          • lime!@feddit.nu
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            1 month ago

            yes, yes, and it works without tearing in xorg no problem. multitouch is not xorgs nor wayland’s responsibility.

            • Petter1@lemm.ee
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              Umm no. Xorg only knows keyboard and pointer devices

              Everything must be put into one of those in hacky ways to work with Xorg, meaning you using a protocol for a device that can move itself, scroll and register clicks and keyboard to multitouch efects

              This, for example, results in swiping on Xorg is just clicking a keyboard shortcut, while in wayland you can smoothly scroll for and back between the virtual desktops mid animations

      • Endymion_Mallorn@kbin.melroy.org
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        Mint works like Windows and has a lot to offer any Windows 10 user who’s already using FOSS. And tbh Hypnotix alone justified the install of Mint for me. I got a great IPTV viewer, plus a PC that runs everything I want.

        Note: I only regularly want Discord, Firefox, Endless Sky, OpenTTD, RetroArch, and LibreOffice. I’m sure everyone else has different goals.

          • Endymion_Mallorn@kbin.melroy.org
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            Then whatever a modern OS is under your model is not an OS I’m willing to use. I’ve seen Win 11. I’m going to stick with 10, as I stuck with XP through Vista, had a second machine with 7 through 8(.x), and then surrendered and used Win10 when the 32-bit Win7 machine finally stopped working for love or money.

            • Petter1@lemm.ee
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              Well that is fair and I am very glad that Linux still offers you what you need and that you are fine with using X and have (still) more compatibility like this 😇

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    I do not recommend Arch to new users but I really wish people would have a point supported by evidence when they post.

    There is no 50 page manual to install EndeeavourOS or CachyOS, the two distros mentioned in the graphic. Both are as easy to point and click install as Fedora and maybe easier than Debian. The better hardware support makes the install much more likely to succeed. They both have graphical installers and lead you by the hand. In fact, when it comes to EOS, its entire identify is making Arch easy to install and to provide sensible defaults so that everything works out of the box. And of the 80,000 packages in Arch/AUR, less than 20 of them are unique to EOS (mostly theming).

    There are lots of things to complain about regarding Arch related distros. Or maybe there isn’t if we have to lie about them.

  • dx1@lemmy.ml
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    I’ll tell you, nothing bricks as hard or as irreparably as Windows. I have never had to actually reinstall Linux due to some problem (though it’s a good practice security-wise).

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    The level of disillusion in the thread is insane. At no point in time is it a good idea to recommend Arch and it’s derivatives to Linux newbies. They will 100% wreck their install in the first two weeks. Even I, as a pretty experienced user had to wipe my arch install after failed update attempts, luckily I had a separate home partition. Anything else like fedora or tumbleweed will provide packages that are very up to date, but that are also tested. For example I don’t fear that updating my fedora install will completely brick the networking of my system like what happened to me on arch.

    Ironically I wouldn’t recommend any Ubuntu derivatives as for some reason, every single time I’ve installed Ubuntu or one of its variants like PopOS they ended up messed up in some way or another, albeit never as critical as Arch did to me numerous times. Probably some kind of PPA issues that make the system weird because it’s always the fault of PPAs

    • 0x0@programming.dev
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      Ubuntu or one of its variants

      Even Mint? Seems to be the go-to recommendation for newbies.

      • Pasta Dental@sh.itjust.works
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        Never was able to try mint, I only did once but the installer didn’t work for some reason, probably Nvidia related so I don’t blame mint for it.

    • Allero@lemmy.today
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      Honestly, as someone who ran Arch and its derivatives, no one should be running upstream Arch but the testers.

      No amount of experience or expertise will save you from breaking it. It WILL break, and you’ll be mocked for that as well by “Arch elitists” who will then face the same issue.

      That’s why Linux veterans are rarely using Arch. It’s good for its purpose, it’s very important both for downstream Arch and for the entire Linux community, but it is NOT the distro you should run on your PC.

      Go Fedora. Go Debian. Go to the downstream distros if you’re strongly into Arch, take Garuda for example. Make your machine actually work.

        • Allero@lemmy.today
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          2 months ago

          Some functionality (menus, networking) working not as expected, random glitches, bugs, instabilities…also, now coming from the experiences of others (wasn’t there at the time), one time even GRUB had an update that broke it on all systems with Arch, forcing many to halt updates. In my eyes, from personal experience and experiences of others, it got a reputation as a quite messy system.

          • Pasta Dental@sh.itjust.works
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            1 month ago

            Oh wow yeah I had forgotten about the grub update, the only way to not have a bricked computer was to be active in the arch communities because they didn’t remove the faulty package even though it was known to brick computers

          • Aatube@kbin.melroy.org
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            1 month ago

            The GRUB update is why more Arch needs more testers lol. They do have separate repositories for testing, but none of the active testers had the relevant problematic configuration that caused that problem during the testing period, and then it shipped to stable. The package maintainer did configure the package to not include the breaking change that same day, but it doesn’t look like that was ever shipped for some reason.

  • NaevaTheRat [she/her]@vegantheoryclub.org
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    2 months ago

    What are people doing that breaks their computers? I have used arch for like 15 years now and nothing ever goes wrong?

    The closest would be on my desktop sometimes nvidia drivers are in a state that breaks display reinit on wake from sleep but my thinkpad is always fine.

    Seriously who are you weird computer vandals going around and breaking everything all the time? What do you do?

    • Thorned_Rose@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      Almost a decade for me (on CachyOS currently) and I also have no idea how people are breaking their systems so much. In that decade, I think my system broke twice due to an update hiccup and both times were easy to fix.

      • NaevaTheRat [she/her]@vegantheoryclub.org
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        2 months ago

        I think people might be saying their system broke when a specific, non critical, application doesn’t work after an update based on an interaction here.

        That does become more common if you start installing third party software and/or use less common/recommended tools. Personally I wouldn’t consider that breaking, but I guess to a casual person it might not be clear that rolling upgrade systems have this risk and the weirder your system gets the more familiar you should be with backups and rollbacks.

        • Thorned_Rose@sh.itjust.works
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          2 months ago

          If that is the case, that’s a weird way to think. I mean, if I was using Windows and one app stopped working, I wouldn’t blame that on Windows, I would just assume an issue with that particular app being incompatible with an update. 🤷🏻‍♀️ At least, my definition of my system breaking is either it won’t boot at all, or it won’t boot into the DE. Even then, not booting could be a broken bootloader (not a broken system) which is usually straightforward to fix.

          • NaevaTheRat [she/her]@vegantheoryclub.org
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            2 months ago

            Yeah, I would say broken if it wont boot to a normal userspace. Like if you need to insert a recovery tool, or even just login as root and unfuck something before you can get your X/Wayland session up, or if applications start crashing because toolFoo has some critical bug.

            But the last time that happened was on Debian when I tried to write a fstab file manually without reading the manual. Also this was the era of CD drives and no multi PC households. Learned a valuable lesson on the ride back from the library, printed documentation in hand haha.

    • LeFantome@programming.dev
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      2 months ago

      I had my first ever “breakage” on Arch recently. Actually two just recently (both on an old Mac):

      • the driver for my Broadcom hardware was broken for a day
      • with the upgrade to kernel 6.13, the FaceTimeHD camera is not working

      Neither issue seems to be present in the LTS kernel (which is 6.12). I have both a current and an LTS kernel installed. So rebooting to LTS had me up and running. If I did not have that, no WiFi would have been a bigger issue os the MacBook Air has not Ethernet. The lack of a camera would be no video meetings without the LTS kernel as well. The problem has existed for a few days.

      So, I can no longer say that I have never had an issue on Arch. I can say they have been rare. I can say I had more issues with Ubuntu or Fedora in the past.

      I can also say that the only breakage I have had was mitigated by having an LTS kernel to reboot into.

      • NaevaTheRat [she/her]@vegantheoryclub.org
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        2 months ago

        Fair, that’s defs breakage that would trip up a novice computer user.

        I’ve been around enough to know that everyone ignores “have backups”. Although I think pacman can do rollbacks because it keeps a cache by default? I’ve never had to and I use snapshots so /shrug.

        Still a novice computer user would probably not feel comfortable reading manual pages, and even an expert would be annoyed if this happened.


        I tried to run linux on a mac once (work supplied) and it was very annoying compared to a think pad. I can’t remember specifically why, maybe the touchpad had low level drag scrolling I couldn’t overrule or something like that. How do you find it?

    • Lettuce eat lettuce@lemmy.ml
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      2 months ago

      Timeshift has turned my system breaking updates and tinkering into a non-issue. I just set up all my systems with it right off the bat. One snapshot per day, one weekly, and one monthly.

      Since doing that, I’ve never had to toss a totally borked install.

    • Kitathalla@lemy.lol
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      1 month ago

      sometimes nvidia drivers are in a state that breaks display reinit on wake from sleep

      Hmm, got a question for you about that. What did that appear as for you? Just a black screen and nothing else if it went to sleep?

      I had a recently installed app fuck something in my settings so my display is going to sleep after 10 minutes, and when I wake it up I get a normal appearing lock screen with a login. If I login, the screen goes black and all I can see is the mouse cursor. I think about 1 time in 10 it will have no issues and I get back to whatever I’m doing.

      • NaevaTheRat [she/her]@vegantheoryclub.org
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        1 month ago

        Yeah black screen with mouse cursor is the thing. If I check the logs it’ll complain about errors trying to get display foo. Can switch to a TTY session and kill shit and get display back if I restart X.

        nfi why the mouse cursor still works.

  • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
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    2 months ago

    people who unironically recommend anything arch-based (haha yes steamos is based on arch, yes you’re very very clever, i’m sure you can even figure out why it’s an obvious exception if you think about it for a minute) are just detached from reality and simply want to be part of a group.

    The only time arch is suitable for beginners is installing it in a VM to learn linux via brute force, after you’ve gotten used to going through that process you’ll have a very solid base of knowledge for using a more suitable distro.